


steel and plastic

by horrorterroronesie



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Other, beholding!juno, stranger!peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:01:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21597079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horrorterroronesie/pseuds/horrorterroronesie
Summary: Juno is a detective that always Knows more than he should. Peter is an indescribable impostor, a spawn of The Stranger.They make it work.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 10
Kudos: 153





	steel and plastic

People who hire private investigators never fail to have their own share of dirty secrets. It gets tiring, after a while. Tearing a rope of connections and affairs and offshore accounts out of the sludge of the case's facts. But everything comes to light in the end, even the flickering, sallow light of New York City at night. Someone knows everything, after all’s said and done. And that someone always ends up being him.

Juno Steel, private _eye_ in every sense of the word, sighs and knocks back another drink. He'd just closed one such case, a mess of inheritances, fake deaths, and arranged marriages. The truth was set on the table, kicking and screaming the whole way. He hates it, _god_ he hates it, the slow slipping of his priorities from _helping_ to _knowing._ Will he find himself one day taking cases from the city's worst- the cops, the lowlifes- just to learn something? Regardless of who it hurts?

He takes another drink. Scrubs at his eyepatch. _Ugh._

The bar isn't as seedy as one might expect. This, sadly, means the bartender might actually give a shit enough to cut him off at some point. Oh well. A lady's got to have standards.

As it is, he almost doesn't notice the person who sidles onto the stool next to him. No, that's wrong- he notices him as much as he does every other person in the bar, but he doesn't _See_ him until he smells formaldehyde and that indescribable cologne and hears-

"Hello, Juno. It's been a while."

And there he is. Peter Nureyev. His skin is different from last time, this time Asian and refined. He inclines his head just a tad. Juno… can't quite respond.

"I- you. What are you doing here, Nureyev?”

“Oh, just passing through. You know how it is.” He drapes himself over the counter. 

_He’s taking a plane to London tomorrow_ flashes into Juno’s head. The very same headache he’d come here to get rid of returns with a vengeance. Heedless, Peter orders a drink.

"It's been a while." Juno repeats. He’s not _complaining_ , but… seeing him again, wearing yet another face and probably a new name, too...

"It has, hasn't it. Care to catch up?"

\--

They collapse against the door of his apartment in a tangle of limbs.

"Oh, Nureyev." He half-moans and feels Peter tense under him. He hadn't understood it at first. It was just a name, wasn't it? Oh, he'd been naive. New to the world of fears and monsters and knowing things he couldn't possibly have found out on his own. New to I See You and ignorant of I Do Not Know You.

Peter's hand comes up to cradle his jaw, unyielding plastic shifting under warm skin.

Juno Knows who Peter is. He pins him down like a butterfly on a corkboard, spread out and catalogued.

Then Peter leans in to kiss him, and he doesn't know _anything_.

Their dance continues. The two of them are opposites, water and oil, fire and ice.

Or steel and plastic. Heh.

He might mention that to Peter, as soon as he remembers what "Peter" means. Or "mention". Or "he".

He shudders under the gentle ministrations of an unfathomable lover. 

But the Beholding doesn't let up so easily, even as his mind sighs in relief at the brief reprieve. Each ineffable sensation comes with a sliver of awareness, tearing him between two extremes. He knows it’s Peter, whatever, whoever, however it works, it’s Peter’s breath against the nape of his neck.

And it's Peter's hands that gently lift his eyepatch up and off his head.

Juno opens his eyes.

And opens his eyes.

And opens his eyes.

"Tired of having the upper hand?” He quips, the oil-slick confusion of the Stranger evaporating off of him.

“I thought you might like to have a chance. You were quite out of it, you know.”

“Oh, come on.” He splays his hand against Peter’s chest, watching in dizzying clarity as plastic joints and panels shift underneath. “You just want me to do all the work.”

“Guilty.”

Well, he isn't averse to a change of plans. Juno _looks_ and smirks a little as Peter squirms under his many-fold gaze. 

Flashes of insight dance against his irises, first-person memories and factoids. He’s seen this all before. One of the Beholding’s American chapters had attempted a ritual- the Angel of Brahma- and Peter had foiled it. 

And yet, through all that, there’s still something missing. Because who could ever purport to understand Peter Nureyev?

They entwine again and the dance continues.

\--

In the morning, one of them will be gone. That's how it always goes. They don't talk about it, play it up as some little game of cat and mouse, but the truth- the real, constant, undeniable truth- is that they can't risk it.

If Peter let himself become a known variable, a concrete identity-

If Juno let himself become a skin-deep facade, an uncertainty-

It would kill them both.

But they would do it for each other.

So for now, Juno just curls further into Peter’s chest and counts heartbeats.


End file.
